A Conversation with the Busiest Person in Politics: Alex, Trump Store Manager

If you're like me, you likely made the masochistic decision to sign onto the Trump campaign email list earlier this year. It was a strange election. Trump was always on the verge of being overrun by the dark forces of Hillary Clinton and her unparalleled money-raising machine, and yet he remained permanently perched on the verge of a historic victory. The effect was one of constant groveling mixed with indefatigable confidence.

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"The test of a first-rate intelligence," as old F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

I did not retain my ability to function. After a while, most of the emails were directed to my spam folder, for the preservation of my own increasingly fragile mental health. But one sent around Thanksgiving caught my eye:

Alex Sarp

It was a sales pitch from the Trump Store, a fundraising partnership between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, for a collectible MAGA red hat ornament. "Made of brass and finished in 24 karat gold, this ornament is sure to make any tree stand out," the copy assured. (It's since been discounted from $149 to $99, a veritable bargain.)

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But that wasn't the interesting part. At the bottom of the email there was a tiny thumbnail picture of a woman wearing the now iconic hat, and a sign off: "Alex, Trump Store Manager."

Having my brain pulverized by a steady stream of misinformation and lies for the past year and a half, I instantly assumed the presence of Alex was some sort of scam. What possible reason could the campaign have for including a random, tiny photo—perhaps a stock photo—of a comely young blonde woman? Were supporters supposed to imagine a friendly relationship at work here? Just emailing with my pal Alex, ordering up my $150 ornament!

That's actually pretty close to the truth. Over the next few weeks, I convinced myself that Alex didn't actually exist, and this was all some sort of pointless ruse. Emails to the campaign and GOP went unanswered asking for more information, until finally, last week, she emerged from the ether. A friend found her Twitter. Alex, Trump Store Manager, was real!

Alex Sarp, a 25 year old from Taylor, Texas, who now lives in Arlignton, Virginia, has been working for the RNC running their GOP store for about a year and a half now. It's a career in politics that began with an internship for her home state Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and led to working on the advance team for the Romney campaign. Earlier this year, she took over running the Trump Store as well, where she oversees all the of the ordering, product sourcing, and logistics for the thousands of customers, happy and otherwise, that patronize the digital marketplace of Trumpian brand tchotchkes. I called Sarp and asked her more about what it's like running the store, and about some of the most popular items in Trumplandia leading up to the Christmas rush.

I'm glad to learn that you're a real person!

I'm a real person! I know, a lot of people think that I'm not, or maybe a stock photo or something. But, no, I'm real, that's a real selfie.

You've been involved in politics for a while.

I studied political science in college. Once I graduated from Texas State University, I moved up to D.C. four days later and did a summer internship, and that turned into me getting a job as an advance staffer on the Romney campaign. I really enjoyed that. I traveled across the country for that. Then I settled back in D.C. hoping to get another gig in politics full time, and started working at the RNC in 2014.

sarpasaurus/Twitter

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How did working on the Romney campaign compare to this year's campaign?

Well, this year was definitely more historic. The amount of fundraising we've been doing is monumental. I was involved in a different capacity on the Romney campaign. I did more event logistics, planning, big rallies. This year I've gotten to see from a digital perspective the amount of fundraising going on has been tremendous. The efforts on the digital front has been historic, the stakes were definitely higher this year.

What is your actual job title?

I'm the GOP store manager. I manage the fundraising and merchandise for the GOP store, but this August I started running the Trump store and running his efforts there through merchandise. That involves all aspects from checking the products, product sourcing the vendors we use to create those products, and customer service as well, which is a big part of what we do. I and my colleague take that very seriously, making sure our donors have a positive experience. Right now Christmas is huge so we want to make sure everyone gets their merch in time for Christmas.

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How many people do you work with?

As far as my day to day it's just myself managing the back end of the store. But our vendor, Ace Specialities, based out of Louisiana, they help a lot with pre-packing the orders. Everything is sent from their warehouse. Then I have 2 or 3 people at the RNC that also help me in responding to emails. We get thousands of email responses daily, so fielding through those is kind of a challenge, but we try and respond to everyone we can.

What sort of emails do you get?

We get everything. Some people will think that everybody at the RNC has direct contact with President-Elect Trump, so they'll give us policy advice, or advice to tell him. Or we'll get comments, "I don't like so and so." The things we're looking for are "I received my mug, it's broken, can you ship me a new one?" We're happy to help. Or "I got my hat today, I'm so excited to wear it." So we get positive and negative emails alike. We can't respond to everybody but we try to respond to as many as we can. A lot of times people think they're emailing a robot, and we want our donors to have a person experience. I think that's part of the reason why we started incorporating my photograph in a lot of our emails. We want people to know there's a real person listening.

sarpasaurus/Twitter

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Whose idea was that to include your photo?

It was our digital director, Garrett Lansing, to try to bring a face to digital, make it more human. A lot of times you have a very robotic experience when you use digital, and we didn't want that to happen. We started using my photo about a year ago, with general GOP emails. Since I took over the Trump store, we figured we'd incorporate it there as well. Some of the donor emails that we get will ask "Is Alex a real person?" "Is anyone reading this?" "Alex, are you there?" But no other reporters have reached out to try to figure me out.

"Alex, are you there?" That sounds like people trying to find someone to talk to.

Yeah. It's funny, they'll find me sometimes on Facebook or LinkedIn, or send me a friend request. On LinkedIn sometimes I'll accept some of them. I try to help out. I'm not a celebrity!

What are sales like? And where do the ideas for the merch come from?

We're doing around $100,000 in sales a daily this month. It's collaborative. Mostly our online fundraising team, which includes online advertising or the email program, and myself. We'll sit down have brainstorming sessions, and look at internal and external polling to determine current trends to figure out which items our donors are excited to purchase. A lot of times our donors will email and say ,"Hey I'm really interested in a stadium blanket, or..." We listen to people. But a campaign is always going to have your core products. Hats, T-shirts, bumper stickers, anything to get your name out there.

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Were there any you were particularly excited about?

The onesies, everybody loves the onesies. The ornament, everybody was really excited about it. It's one of a kind, it pretty much symbolizes this historic election that donors definitely want to have on their tree. It's made of all brass and it's finished in 24 karat gold so that's pretty cool.

Nice. What was the most popular item all year? The hat?

Definitely the classic red Make America Great Again product. Other bestsellers were the yard sign and bumper stickers, which I thought was interesting, because those are things that people put out there to the public to show who they're supporting.

sarpasaurus/Twitter

Were there any that weren't a hit?

No, pretty much everything sold!

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Is that the truth, or…

No we didn't have anything that wasn't moving. There were things we sold less of sure, like any store. But there was nothing where we were like, Oh that was a stupid idea, why did we order that? When we introduced the MAGA sweatband, we got a lot of press for that and people were like, "That's such a silly product ,why would they even sell that?" But we sold out of 1,000.

Where do the proceeds go? This is the Trump Campaign and the RNC? How does that work? They're considered donations, but they're not tax deductible?

Everything in the store goes to what we call the joint fundraising committee, joint between the campaign and the RNC, and it has its own name, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee. Correct, they are considered political donations and are not tax deductible.

Are all the items made in the USA?

Absolutely. We take that very seriously.

And they're all made in Louisiana or just shipped from there?

That's where they're warehoused and shipped from. I believe some of them are made there, but some of their products they source from other manufacturers, but we make sure they're all made in the USA.

I noticed you're a singer as well.

Yeah, it's a hobby I really enjoy, but I wish I had more time to do it.

Maybe they could get your for the inauguration?

If they came and asked me, I would love to! But I'm just hoping for National Anthems at semi-professional baseball games or whatever. Any opportunity, I'm available.

So what else is coming up at the store?

We're still selling things, and people can still buy. We're releasing new products, we're not done. So as inauguration comes up, you can check back on the store for some inauguration-specific merchandise.

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